'Microfactory' for Local Motors only a short distance from Oak Ridge

Carolyn Krause/Special to The Oak Ridger

Tuesday

Nov 14, 2017 at 3:50 PM

Between the Hardin Valley and Lovell Road exits from Pellissippi Parkway, high above at right as you drive toward Knoxville, is a state-of-the-art, steel-and-glass building emblazoned with the company name Local Motors.

Between the Hardin Valley and Lovell Road exits from Pellissippi Parkway, high above at right as you drive toward Knoxville, is a state-of-the-art, steel-and-glass building emblazoned with the company name Local Motors.

As you enter LM’s largest building, you will feel as if you are in a museum lobby combined with an auto showroom. You will see unique cars, cute stationary robots made of Local Motors scrap and LM shirts for sale. You will notice that the ceiling is high enough to accommodate a crane.

The 50,000-square-foot building, which is the first from scratch of Local Motors’ representations of a “microfactory,” is a “template for distributed manufacturing,” said Gregory Haye, general manager and director of business development and research and development for LM in Knox County. Other LM facilities are located in Chandler, Ariz., Tempe, Ariz., and National Harbor, Md.

The main project of the Knox County facility is the research and development work needed to create better materials and technologies for Olli, a self-driving electric shuttle that will hold up to 12 passengers. The facility will be the manufacturing home for the fully 3D-printed Olli. An advanced model of Olli is in the facility’s lobby. (Please see Related Story, Page 4A)

I recently toured the new building, along with 12 other members of the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning. Here’s what Haye told the ORICL folks about LM.

Local Motors was founded in 2008 in Massachusetts by Jay Rogers, LM’s chief executive officer. The son of an entrepreneur, Rogers is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School, where he wrote and presented a business case for Local Motors.

Previously, he served as a Marine for seven years, mostly in Afghanistan.

Rogers’ idea is to develop vehicles through “co-creation.” A problem, or challenge, is posted on the Local Motors “SaaS platform” website (https://launchforth.io/localmotors/), where community members from all over the world are invited to submit transportation vehicle designs that solve the problem. LM seeks to commercialize each design selected by community vote on the website. The winning designer will receive a commission or royalties from sales of the innovative vehicles.

One of the cars on display is the Rally Fighter, the world’s first co-created vehicle that LM developed and commercialized using co-creation design. The Rally Fighter, built in 2008, has been featured in TV shows, films and video games.

Rogers wanted to develop a desert vehicle so he moved to Phoenix to set up shop. Then he learned about Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) and its work on improving 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, for making large parts. So Rogers opened a Local Motors office in Knoxville’s Market Square and established a relationship with MDF’s Lonnie Love and others.

ORNL researchers at MDF have been working with Local Motors and Cincinnati, manufacturer of large-scale 3D printers, to improve the materials for and the output volume and speed of additive manufacturing machines programmed to produce parts for a vehicle’s chassis.

The 3M printer deposits the molten material layer by layer on a computer-controlled table that drops slightly after each deposit while the part is built from scratch to form a three-dimensional solid whose size and shape are dictated by a computer model or computer-aided design file. Materials (the “ink” for the “printer”) include carbon-fiber composites from ORNL’s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility and polymer compounds from Techmer in nearby Clinton.

Another vehicle on display is the Strati, the world’s first 3D-printed electric car. It was printed at MDF from a carbon-fiber-reinforced thermoplastic material by SABIC. The car structure of the Strati was produced from 212 layers deposited in 44 hours by a large-scale 3D printer. It resulted from a cooperative research and development agreement with the MDF and Cincinnati.

Haye said that ORNL researchers have improved the 3D printer technology so much that the Strati could now be printed in 24 hours.

“The material we have made in the past two-and-a-half years is four to seven times stronger,” he added. “The machines we will get in the next couple months will print 200 to 500 pounds per hour versus the 90 pounds per hour we currently produce. We will be able to print a Strati in 12 hours and it will be half as heavy as it used to be.”

In 2014, a Strati was printed at the International Manufacturing trade show in Chicago. An engine and other parts were added to the base frame, and the car was driven away. People were impressed, but some insisted that the car have a cup holder for their coffee. So, a short time later at the North American International Show (Detroit Auto Show), “we did the same song and dance,” Haye said, adding that the printed-out Strati had a cup holder.

The investors in Local Motors are General Electric, Airbus, several venture companies and private individuals. Siemens helps LM with software development for additive manufacturing machines.

GE now has a microfactory in Louisville, Ky., modeled after the one in Knox County. It will use additive manufacturing to make future appliances and other items.

Two years ago LM worked with Airbus on making drones using 3D printing. For U.S. defense agencies, it has worked on manufacturing helicopter parts.

Original equipment manufacturers are migrating from using tools and injection molding to making components for the automotive industry.

“The automotive industry often invests a billion dollars to develop a vehicle based on a new design,” Haye said. “We produce vehicles with a quick turnaround and without tooling, stamping or forming. We can make six molds by 3D printing in three days. In traditional automotive manufacturing, it takes two to six months to make a mold for one component.”

Haye said that LM’s largest microfactory is “strategically located” because of its proximity to ORNL researchers at the MDF and its position in the Southeast “where automotive manufacturing is quite large. We are located smack in the middle of the automotive supply chain. We have to buy wheels, headlights, rotors, engines and batteries to complete assembly of our vehicles.”

LM mostly uses additive manufacturing rather than traditional subtractive technology in which a block of material is cut, machined, drilled or milled, creating waste. If LM makes mistakes printing parts from materials made in Clinton, it sends the defective parts to Lenoir City to be ground up. The tiny pellets are returned to LM for use in additive manufacturing. For more information, contact Gregory Haye at ghaye@local-motors.com.

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